


loving you isn't hard

by loneliestfox



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-29 02:35:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12072810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loneliestfox/pseuds/loneliestfox
Summary: It’s summer. It’s summer and Donghyuck hasn’t spoken to Mark in weeks.





	loving you isn't hard

**Author's Note:**

> listen, i've rewritten this at least, like, 10 times and i dont rly care anymore at this point how this'll look. i'll face god himself and walk backwards into hell I Don't Give a Shit
> 
> oh also [here's](https://clockbirdy.wordpress.com/2017/10/14/almost-happy-almost-sad/amp/) the original fic but in vietnamese translated by [fuadan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/fuadan)!

Being in love is a sign of weakness.

No wiseass told him that. It was Donghyuck. He is that wiseass, unfortunately. And now the same wiseass is in love and he’s thoroughly fucked. And and

He doesn’t know what to with himself.

He stares at his empty, calloused hands, palms up and smiles bitterly. Summer has always been swimming with Mark, running with Mark, lazing around each other’s room with the window open. Countless nights they have spent watching rom-com movies because they like to laugh at how stupid the characters now. He could never relate until now. Until now, when he belatedly realises that he might just be a main character in one — except in this one, Mark leaves him and falls in love with someone better. Probably.

It’s summer. It’s summer and Donghyuck hasn’t spoken to Mark in weeks.

(Donghyuck’s breath had stuttered when Mark showed him the acceptance letter. He knew it was coming. He just didn’t expect it to be so fucking soon. 

“You’re going to college,” he says flatly. “Out of state.”

“Yeah,” Mark says, grinning wide, his whole body seems to vibrate from excitement. “You’re happy for me right?”

This oblivious fuck. Donghyuck musters up a smile and nods.

“Of course.”)

He had hoped that Mark got the message (the message where he’s trying to live a summer without Mark for once, you know, to get used to things.) The last time Mark spent the day in his room was the day after he dropped the bomb on him. He was still trying to sort out his feelings. Mark grazed his hand against his and they both froze.

And then Mark had kissed him.

And it’s terrible — it is, dear God. The desperation that he needs to taste it again. It’s almost pathetic. 

He wasn’t ignoring him, entirely. It’s just that Donghyuck has been cooped up in his room for the past weeks and refuses to spend more than five minutes in the kitchen and living room where he can get a good view of Mark’s house.

So he isn’t that terrible. He’s just been —  _ uh —  _ busy.

The door to his bedroom is open and so is his window, letting all the summer breeze come in. He graces a small smile on his face, staring at the fan on the ceiling as a cure to his boredom. Fans are cool.

Donghyuck chuckles to himself.

“Donghyuck.”

Donghyuck looks at the doorway upside down from where he’s laying down and sees his brother leaning against his doorframe. He grins, all teeth and gums. His brother always makes him happy. “Hyung,” he says. He probably looks silly. His face might look red, too. “What’s up?”

“Mark’s here,” he says with a smile. Cheeky smile. “You should say hi.”

Donghyuck blinks. Once. Twice, before the realisation finally sinks in. Finally played out the thought out in his head, turned inside out. Mark, Mark, Mark. Mark’s here. In his house.

He sits upright and presses his palms on the top of his head. Flattens his hair.

“Oh,” he says. “Tell him I said hi then.”

Taeyong levels him with a look before stalking off. It doesn’t take a genius to know what’s up his sleeve. All Donghyuck could do is sigh and hug his knees to his chest. Awaiting disaster.

Footsteps get louder and then, “Donghyuck.” Disaster: Found. “Hi,” Mark says, standing against the doorframe. He’s already looking tan and toned. His arms look nice, too. Real nice. 

Donghyuck smiles. “Hi.”

Mark smiles and closes the door behind him. He takes a seat next to Donghyuck on his bed. The bed where they had binge-watched Stranger Things a few weeks before. Where Mark had kissed him and it felt like finally being alive. Mark flattens his palms on the bed and spreads out his fingers.

“How’s life?” His voice is real nice, too. Did it get deeper through the weeks? 

Horrible. “Good,” Donghyuck lies. “You?”

Mark leans back, shrugging. Says, “Quite bad, my best friend’s ignoring me.”

His heart falls to the floor, shattered to pieces. Donghyuck sweeps them under the bed with his feet.

“Sorry,” he says, voice tiny.

“I missed you, you know? I’ve been running alone. Swimming, too.”

“I’m sorry."

“Watching Netflix alone is kinda boring, too,” he says, laughing lightly and looks across the room. Taemin on the poster grins. “What’s wrong?” Mark asks, after a few seconds. “Was it something I did.”

Of course it was something he did. If Mark had not kissed him, he would be living with his feelings shoved down his throat, hidden behind his ribcage. If Mark had not kissed him, he would spend his entire life shoving his feelings down, down, down. The kiss only unraveled everything — all his hard work, all for nothing. And it was only a  _ kiss _ .

“Maybe,” Donghyuck answers. Vague. Nice one, Donghyuck.

Mark hums as an answer and in Donghyuck’s peripheral view, he sees him nodding. Mark scoots closer. Shoulders touching. He’s warm and Donghyuck wants more.

They listen to the whir of the fan, the chirping of the birds, anything but acknowledging each other’s existence. Then,

“It was the kiss, wasn’t it?”

The wind flutters into the room and the wind chime hanging atop Donghyuck’s windowsill tintinnabulates. Donghyuck breathes. He wants to cry.

Mark clears his throat. “I’m sorry."

“No.”

“No?” Mark sounds confused. “Then —”

“It’s not the kiss,” he says, chest feeling constricted suddenly. Heavy. Fuck. “Mark, you kissed me.”

“Yeah? I know I’m sor—”

_ You don’t have to say sorry. It’s me. It’s me. _ He has never cried in front of anyone besides his mother, ever. Not even his brother. His chest felt tight and heavy and he had to take a deep breath to feel alive again. It’s not the kiss.  _ It’s not the kiss _ .

It’s  _ me _ .

“You’re moving across the country and I don’t know how — how on Earth am I going to cope with the fact someone I love is so far away from me.”

The room is quiet. The gentle breeze that swept through the room is soft and warm and kisses his skin gently. Like a pat of reassurance. He is doing okay. He’ll be okay.

He continues. “Yeah, Mark, I’m in love with you and then I thought, okay, fine. Maybe if I bury my feelings deep inside of me, under all this bones, I’d be fine.” He pauses. “And then you kissed me.”

“Donghyuck,” Mark trails. His hands grabs Donghyuck’s and squeezes them. “Donghyuck.”

“Yeah.”

“You know, I love you, too.”

And then Donghyuck crumbles, there were frustrated tears in his eyes and now it’s flowing down his cheeks and to his neck. He brings his hands up to cover his face. To sob into them. To cover himself from Mark. God, this is the most pathetic thing he has ever done. And this is coming from  _ him _ .

Donghyuck feels Mark’s warm arms encircling around his body and then suddenly he’s in Mark’s lap, bawling his eyes out into Mark’s chest. He sobs more, curling more into Mark.

They don’t say anything. Or do anything. It was only him, Donghyuck “I’m so pathetically in love with my best friend” Lee, crying onto Mark’s shirt and Mark “Idiot” Lee rocking him back and forth gently. It’s nice. Crying.

“Boys don’t cry,” Mark says, chuckling. But it didn’t sound much like a demand or a downgrading remark. More like a way to make him laugh. And laugh he did.

“Sorry,” Donghyuck says, pulling away to wipe his tears off his face, a weak smile plastered on his face. “Your shirt’s all soaked.”

Mark shrugs. “It’s okay,” he says and cups Donghyuck’s face. He smiles. “You okay?”

Donghyuck nods, blinking through his tears. When Mark grins wider at his answer, he feels another wave of tears coming up. Oh no.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Mark says, laughing now. He still hasn’t let go of Donghyuck’s face and his face is all wet and red and this is the Worst. The best friend he’s been pining for years just confessed to him and he looks like? “Stop crying, dumbass.”

“Wow, okay, I’m sorry for being scared of the fact you’re leaving for college soon?”

“I’m moving next month, oh my God,” Mark answers.

“Soon!”

Mark looks at him with this, this kind of funny look. Eyes soft, glistening and he doesn’t know what that means. He’s been friends with Mark for years and doesn’t know what that look means. “What,” he says, getting off Mark and lies down instead. Mark’s eyes follow his every move. “Stop staring at me like that.”

“Just,” Mark begins. He turns his body to face Donghyuck, lifts his legs up and crosses them. “You were really ready to ignore me for the rest of the summer before I go to college?”

Donghyuck groans and turns to press his face against his pillow. It’s soaked wet.

“I didn’t want to, you know, like, break my heart more,” he says softly and he’d be shocked if Mark could even catch that. He continues anyway. “I thought maybe if I did that I could handle being without you for a moment but I really — I really can’t.”

Mark has his fingers around Donghyuck’s wrist, now and that makes him turn to look at Mark. He has a stupid grin on his face and it’s enough for Donghyuck usually to shove him down to the floor with a kick. But this isn’t usually. So Donghyuck stares back.

“You can’t live without me?”

“I will kick you.”

“Okay,” Mark says, grasping Donghyuck’s ankle now. Probably for precaution. “Maybe we should talk, yeah? We can handle this, Hyuck. I trust us.”

_ Us _ . Donghyuck really likes the sound of that. “Okay.” Donghyuck clears his throat. “I’ll start. When did you realise you’ve fallen for me?”

They lie next to each other for the next few hours, letting the day go by and watch the sky change colours from blue to purple then to black. They exchange stories and confessions and giggles and Donghyuck wants to kick past him in the nads for not telling Mark straight on, weeks ago. Mark first think he’s in love with Donghyuck when he turned 15, in his all brace-teethed glory and acne-faced self. Donghyuck retorts with a  _ ha! I fell in love with you first, jackass _ . Which in retrospect, isn’t something to be proud of. Now Mark knows how long he’s been pathetically pining over him. But again, Mark isn’t him (who would, for one, totally make fun of that fact) so he smiles wider and tells him,  _ ah, fuck. I lost again. _

The sky’s turned dark when they kiss for the first time today and for the second time in his entire life. 

Donghyuck’s shoulder relaxes into the kiss, Mark’s fingers dancing against his cheeks and he thinks, this is it. Happiness. He smiles and pulls away.

“I can’t believe we’ve been dancing around each other for...years?” Mark says, laughing.

“It’s okay, though,” Donghyuck says, locking eyes with Mark. “We’re here, now.”

“We’re here,” Mark breathes out, his fingers finding Donghyuck’s and laces them together. “We’re here.”

“Yeah,” Donghyuck says. “We’re here.”

And they might have taken too long to find each other but they’re here now and that’s what matters. Maybe two years later, Donghyuck realises he can’t stand Mark anymore and they’d break up or Mark finds someone even better and not Donghyuck. But for now, it doesn’t matter because they’re here, together, and in love and that’s enough.

They kiss again.


End file.
